


Nanny

by Weirdness_Unlimited



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Post-Movie(s), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:19:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6872017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weirdness_Unlimited/pseuds/Weirdness_Unlimited
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a deleted scene in Fury Road we see a woman try to give over her newborn to the guards on the lift. When her infant is rejected she is brought up so that she can become a milk mother.</p><p>I wondered about who looks after the really tiny children that get chosen to be lifted up. We don't see the Milking Mothers with any wee ones, just dolls. So I wondered about whose responsibility it is to look after the smallest War Pups. </p><p>Have a silly little drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nanny

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to come out with humor but instead, it just wound up kinda sad.
> 
> I'm also debating on going back through all of my fictions and converting everything into third person, past tense. This was sort of a test run.

 

The Citadel was still in a state of chaos, Ace had left with every able-bodied War Boy in the war tower who wasn't busy defecting to the side of Corpus Colossus. Toast had just about lost her damn mind, nearly shooting Ace in the face when he shouted loud enough for everyone in the wasteland to hear. _“FUCK Furiosa. I don't give a damn that she traitored Joe, she traitored_ _ **crew**_ _. Not that a soft slip of a girl like you could understand the meaning in that word.”_

He was pissed. Capable supposed that she could understand on some level. She had to stand between Toast and the elder War Boy to prevent her from breaking the agreement Angharad made them all swear to before leaving the vault. No unnecessary killing. He said he was coming back, that he was going to find any survivors and bring them home. It was a cause for alarm in itself, how many of them would come back hostile and dangerous? Ready to avenge Joe?

Then again, it was his choice to leave, and it would be their choice to lower the lift when and if he returned with whoever survived the rock slide at the canyon. Negotiations could be made then. Capable felt another strong wave of anxiety as she thought on it. Could Nux have survived crashing the War Rig? Probably not. Ace left more than a week ago, and who knows what trouble he, Sprockets, Shock, Chug, Die, and Tap have gotten into on the journey. They may not return at all. If trouble _did_ find them it was also a fair conclusion to justify the length of time they had been away from the Citadel.

Furiosa was still bed ridden in the Organic Mechanic's quarters, Shiv and Crypt were looking after her day and night, but she had not cracked open an eye once she collapsed eight days ago. Shiv insisted that she needed rest. Mari and Melita were guarding her door. All of the sisters were armed and so was Capable. She had a colt python tucked into her belt and had been warned by Mari that she had to be careful with it. They had all been told at length that you must grip your weapon properly. The kick back could harm her wrist if she was careless.

She'd taken to wandering the parts of the war tower where they were sequestered since Corpus blew up all but one of the bridges leading to the other buttes. Negotiations with him were slow and stiff. So far, all that the ex-wives had managed to do was have Corpus release the milk-mothers into their custody. Those dear ladies had a hard time of it at first, to stop milking so suddenly is painful however the very youngest War Pups were more than willing to help remedy that. It was a sudden and joyous change for the ladies who used to live by the pumps and were rewarded only according to how much they could produce from their breast. The plump and chronically depressed mothers were able to cast away those ratty dolls that Joe handed them when they found that they were not allowed to keep any child they bore, and now they held real children in their arms. Tiny faces to kiss, little fingers to count over and over, and miniature feet to tickle. Hovering over the entire scene, teaching the out of practice Milk Mothers to change nappies and soothe crying episodes was a perpetually frazzled and overworked man-boy named Nanny.

In her daily wanderings, Capable had found him and his domain in the war tower the day before the Milk Mothers had been released. She'd discovered a door at the highest level of the tower that was barricaded from the inside. She'd enlisted Toast and Mari to help open and secure the room, worried about who or what they might find inside.

Capable had only come upon the room when a small war pup they had never seen before wandered down to the sick bay asking the older pups why no mother's milk had been brought to a place called _The Den_ in three days. Capable quietly followed him back up the spire of steps scratched from the stone and watched the painfully thin child slip back through the door. She listened at the keyhole after that, hearing the wails of small, hungry mouths and the deeper voice of an adult sniffling and heaving sobs along with the children. When she tried to enter, she found that the door wouldn't budge and the person on the other side shouting. “I'LL SHOOT! I'LL SHOOT!”

In the end, they had to get Shiv to jimmy the lock and take the door off the hinges. The scene they discovered inside made their hearts bleed. There had been a dozen pups no older than 800 days, and ten more that ranged anywhere from weeks to months old. Standing in front of them was a frail looking War Boy with a pistol in his trembling hand, a baby strapped to his chest and a toddler clinging to his back.

“Not my babies! Don't you touch them! No eating the babies!”

He wore patchy white war paint that had not been properly applied for several days, his face and scalp may have gone unshaven longer than that, and streaks of black ran all the way from the hollows of his eyes down to his neck. It was clear that such a configuration of markings in charcoal was not intentional and had been a result of weeping. He had to be talked down gently. When he was sufficiently reassured that the women had no intention of harming or devouring his brood he willingly handed the gun over to Toast, who checked the clip and found that it was empty anyway. He had heard that there had been a takeover, that Joe was dead and that Corpus had put a food embargo in place. Nanny heard little else after that, so he assumed that his litter of pups may be endangered and locked the door for fear that whoever had taken the Citadel might turn hungry eyes at the little ones once food got scarce in the war tower.

The war boy just stood there, shaking with fear and perhaps also hunger as Mari hurried away to fetch the other women so they could swarm in to bring food and water to hungry bellies. His skinny arms wrapped around the tiny bundle swaddled against his chest as he slid to the floor and burst into tears, sputtering clipped sentences in between the sobs that tore through him. “They're starving. Need milk. _Starving_. Lost two. Can't do this.”

Although the women of the Vuvalini did not take well to men in the slightest bit, although they didn't trust anyone who could not create life, it was Melita who sat on the floor beside Nanny and wrapped her arms around the boy's shoulders. She rocked with him as if he were merely a child himself. He took to following Melita around after that, calling her _The Grand Mother_. Something about that title seemed to make the lips of both elder women secretly quirk up in small, warm smiles.

The two babies that had not survived were placed in an enormous tire that had been intended for use on the monstrous Ripper Joe had driven when he gave chase in the canyon. The tire was filled with dirt and dust, and Dag planted two seeds in the soil. One for each lost babe.

 


End file.
